Sunday, July 12, 2015

West Now Resolved to Confront Moscow on Ukraine and Moscow is Frightened, Illarionov Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 12 – After 15 months
of uncertainty, the West has resolved to stand up to Moscow on Ukraine and
demand a return to the status quo ante before relations between the West and
Russia can be restored, according to Andrey Illarionov. And that resolve, he
says, has “seriously upset” the Kremlin.

Illarionov says that the shift in the
West’s position began at Brisbane and was sealed by the declaration of
Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow on May 10 when she referred to Crimea and
insisted that Russia’s “illegal occupation” be ended, that the peninsula be
returned to Ukrainian control, and that Russian aggression elsewhere in Ukraine be stopped and reversed.

From February 2014 to that point, he
continues, that is “almost a year and three months, not a single Western leader
made reference to Crimea in such a context.” Consequently, there was an
implicit suggestion that “if Putin stops military actions in the East of
Ukraine, the West either de jure or de facto would agree that the peninsula
would remain under the control of the Russian Federation for the foreseeable
future.”

Please note, Illarionov says, “Crimea
was not mentioned orally or in writing in one document signed as a result of
negotiations in Geneva in April 2014, in Normandy in June 2014, or in Minsk in
September 2014 or February 2015.” Now, it has been, and that shows how far the
West’s position has shifted and hardened.

The sea change in the West has been
marked not only by Merkel’s words but also by NATO’s actions and “what is most
important,” changes “in the opinion of the political elites of the West.”For a long time, “the West slept, having
convinced itself that Putin’s aggression against Ukraine was a mistake, an
accident, or ‘Putin’s emotional outburst’ that it would disappear with time.”

Indeed, there appeared to be “a
serious danger,” Illarionov says, that the West would continue to occupy “approximately
the same position it did in the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 when three months
after the Kremlin’s aggression against Georgia, the West continued relations
with the Russian Federation in the style of business as usual.”

But instead, the West has adopted a
tough line and is demanding as the price of restoring normal relations “the
restoration of the status quo before February 2014” when Russian forces began
their attacks on Ukrainian institutions in Crimea and ultimately occupied the
Ukrainian peninsula while beginning their attacks on Ukraine’s southeast as
well.

“The
Kremlin is seriously frightened,” Illarionov says. It didn’t expect this show
of toughness, and it is sending signals that it doesn’t want because it cannot
sustain confrontation with the West.“Putin
has said that Russia has not pans for an attack on NATO countries, including
the Baltic countries,” he points out.

And
in words even the Kremlin’s opponents would be unlikely to use, Sergey Ivanov,
head of the Presidential Administration and a possible Putin successor,
compared NATO’s forces with Russia’s as those of “a behemoth and a house cat.”Given that, Moscow isn’t going to attack: “Are
we suicidal?” he asked rhetorically.

Ivanov’s
words were a clear signal to the West. They appeared only in the
English-language version of “The Financial Times” but not in the Russian
version.” In this way, Illarionov says, “the Kremlin send the West a clear
message: we do not intend to fight with you; we are frightened, and we do not
want that. Please stop your military preparations.”

Illarionov
even opened the door to the possibility that there will be an international
tribunal on the shooting down of the Malaysian airline in July 2014. The
Netherlands and Malaysia have called for one, although the Russian Foreign
Ministry has denounced such calls as “untimely and counterproductive.”

Whether
such a tribunal will be convened depends on the attitudes of Western
governments.“If they support it,” he
says, “such a tribunal will take place independent of the opinion of the
Russian Federation. The details depend on the degree to which the West will
maintain that line of behavior which it has chosen over the last two months.”